Recently there has been a good deal of interest in Global Positioning System (GPS) enabled wireless communication devices that can track location, give directions to a destination, and provide information about nearby businesses. GPS-enabled devices such as cellular phones, beepers, and portable GPS units, have a GPS receiver for receiving satellite signals from the GPS satellite network. These signals allow determination of the GPS-enabled device's position. Such a device allows for precisely locating the device in terms of latitude and longitude (and sometimes altitude) using the GPS receiver. Some GPS-enabled devices use a database of maps and a display for showing the device's position with reference to a map. The map may include additional information linked with the device's position such as locations of nearby restaurants, hospitals, petrol pumps, etc.
Such services, however, are only as good as the map database; outdated maps can lead to inaccurate directions. Therefore, GPS-enabled devices often have to request a GPS service provider for recent maps containing updated location-based information. This process is time consuming and bandwidth intensive thereby increasing network congestion. Moreover, GPS capable devices usually show the location-based information that has coordinates lying close to the coordinates of the device's location on the map. However, the locations shown on the map might not be of interest to the user of the GPS receiver device.
Accordingly, there is an opportunity to provide location-based information to the GPS-enabled wireless communication device in a more time-efficient and bandwidth-efficient manner.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.